


Sleep, My Love

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Brother Dean, Castiel in the Bunker, Insomniac Sam, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Nightmares, Protective Castiel, Sick Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:50:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4745273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt</p><p>Sam is sick, but won't admit it. Dean's washed his hands of it, and it's Castiel's turn to try to talk the man into taking care of himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep, My Love

**Author's Note:**

> Lay your weary head to rest.

Dean threw his hands up in annoyance. "He's all yours! I been keeping that kid alive for going on three decades. I'm ready to let him go down this time, if that's what he's set on doing!" The door slammed and music blared out of Dean's bedroom. The rest of the bunker was silent.

Then Sam threw the old books onto the library table with a thud, and glared down at them. "I'm not a kid," he huffed angrily. "He's never going to get that. I can take care of myself."

Castiel sighed. He knew better than to get between the brothers when they were like this. But for once, he agreed with Dean, and he felt compelled to say so.

"Sam," he intoned cautiously, as he lowered himself into a chair beside his human.

"What?" The hunter's voice was dangerous, a challenge. He was daring Castiel to speak up in Dean's defense. The hazel glare was steady on his research, refusing to look at the angel.

"Sam," he began again stubbornly, "you say that you can take care of yourself, and I agree."

"Thank you." He flipped a page irritably.

"But you choose not to. Dean knows you're pushing your limits, but I know even better than he does that you haven't slept in days. I can..." He hesitated to say that he could smell that Sam was fighting a virus and losing. Humans were funny about his ability to use scent as a resource. "I can sense that you're falling victim to an illness. It isn't serious, but it does require that you rest. I could heal you but you'd continue to be susceptible to this particular virus in the future. It is best to allow your immune-"

"I'm not getting sick! Can everyone just leave me alone? I'm not sleeping because I'm not tired. I'm a grown man, Castiel! I know what my own body needs!"

Castiel pressed his lips together, and narrowed his eyes. He watched Sam for a moment, then took a breath. "My love, could you sit with me for just a little bit? I feel like we haven't touched in a long while."

"You put your damn fingers on my forehead, Cas, and I'll break them."

His eyebrows raised. It was much more like Dean to threaten in that manner. "Understood," he said dryly. "I'm not going to make you fall asleep, Sam. I just want to sit with you."

So the hunter stood and followed Castiel to the bedroom, and curled up with him as they sat against the headboard. Sam was clearly too exhausted to do much more than lie there as his angel rubbed his strong, aching arms.

Castiel had been watching Sam nod into his books all evening, and he was determined that the man would sleep tonight. But he was also unwilling to burn their trust by forcing his grace onto him. So that meant he needed to employ rhetoric and logic to make Sam see the sense of resting properly.

"Sam, you said that you know what your own body needs. It occurs to me that for a long time, it was not exclusively your body, and that this might be bothering you."

"I've had angels and demons living inside me, Cas. That's not something you just get over. And yeah. Sometimes, especially if I'm not feeling well, I fall asleep and I wake up disoriented. It's horrible, not knowing for a minute if you're the one in control or if someone is using you."

Castiel nodded, and stroked Sam's mane gently, steadily. "And so when you start to not feel like yourself..."

"I don't want to fall asleep and wake up wondering if I'm someone else. Or worse, a different version of me."

He sighed. "I'm so sorry, my love. I understand now. Did you know that when I was human, I had nightmares about being possessed by a demon? When it occurred to me that I could be...Demons aren't like angels. They weren't _made_ to need permission to take a host. And as a human, I would have no power to expel one."

"I didn't know you even thought of that," Sam said quietly.

"It made for quite difficult nights when I awoke from nightmares like that. I don't envy humans their struggle inside their own unconsciousness. It's unfair that you and your brother must fight the evil of the world while awake and also brave it in your sleep. If there is anyone who needs good rest, it is the greatest pair of hunters who ever lived."

Sam was smiling sleepily. He could hear it in his voice, and feel it as he brushed fingertips through his hair and across his cheek. "Greatest hunters, huh? We've both been to Hell, Cas. Some days I think we break the world as often as we save it."

"You've been to Hell, my love, but you didn't belong there. Neither did Dean. Or your father, or Bobby Singer. Your Heaven awaits, my love."

Sam snorted softly. His voice was becoming a mere whisper. "Yeah. Thanksgivings with someone else's family. An abandoned old place where I ran to be alone. My Heaven is a lonely one, Cas."

He frowned deeply. "Is that what you saw? That's what Zachariah allowed you to see?"

Sam shifted in his grasp. "Yeah. Why?"

"Sam, the object of Zachariah's scheme was to separate you from your brother, to remind you each how irreconcilably different you are from one another. He wanted Dean to see how you could betray him, and that you're always trying to push him away. That's not your Heaven, Sam."

There was silence, and then suddenly there were tears. "What then?" he murmured.

Castiel smiled and held him tighter, and continued to stroke his hair. "My poor Sam. Did you think Lucifer or Metatron would have been so intent upon conquering Heaven if that was all that was up there? How fair would it be for a human who suffered horribly on earth to have a Heaven based only on those experiences? No, Sam. I've seen your Heaven. When I was at my darkest, filled with fear and taint from the souls of Purgatory, I sought it out. I thought perhaps I could then understand...Sam, your Heaven is a wave of love, filled with family and peace. There is a space for you and your brother there. Your brother's Heaven connects with yours at its center, and his is an overwhelming sense of a job well done. Everywhere he looks, he sees people he has taken care of, safe and happy, because of him. And then where the two Heavens overlap, it is a joyful reunion, a space of contentment and unity. Visually? That space is this bunker. His own space is made up of open fields of fireworks, open roads for his car, a bar full of live music, laughing women, and active pool tables, and lastly, a quiet, peaceful lake where he can fish and never catch anything but memories of his father being proud of him and his mother loving him. Your space is different. I won't ruin the moment of reveal for you, my love, but trust me that you will be content there."

"Will you be there too?"

The whisper caught his sharp ears and made him sigh. "I would like to be, Sam. If you don't mind, I would really like to be. I want to visit each of you in your Heavens. In the center, it will be very much like it is now. Your minds will construct for us various puzzles and circumstances, and we will live them together. Whenever you recall that it is Heaven and not the actual bunker on earth, you will sleep and begin again."

Sam nodded. He was listening to the silence around them. "Dean's music is off," he whispered. "He's gone, isn't he?"

"Yes, Sam."

"Back to his part. To the lake or Roadhouse or someplace."

"Yes, Sam."

The man licked his lips. "How long have we been dead?"

"You've been in Heaven for a very long time, my love."

"Am I sick?"

"No, Sam. All you have to do to feel better is sleep. You've been fighting it, but it's time. Sleep, and you'll wake up in the part of your Heaven you desire the most at the time."

"I'm very tired, Cas."

"I know you are, Sam. You do this to yourself now and then. You refuse to sleep, and you invent for yourself a sickness. I think you still believe somehow that you don't deserve to be happy. You are the only man I know who has nightmares in Heaven, Sam. Even your brother's have eased over time. Please rest, my love. You deserve it. Let yourself have peace."

"Keep talking to me."

"Of course." Castiel began to describe for Sam every reason he belonged in Heaven, and every reason he loved him so sincerely. It was a shame that brothers who had fought evil their whole lives were forced to brave it in Heaven as well, but that was the Winchester way, he supposed. Stubborn, pig-headed martyrs who could not accept that their job was done. He had not realized that one of the things still plaguing Sam was the fear of possession. He would have to find some way to ease that fear if Sam were ever truly to find rest, even in this place.

Castiel continued to talk, until he felt the scene around them shiver into a new setting. He smiled as Sam finally slept. He wondered what part of Sam's Heaven they would find themselves in next. He guessed that Dean had fallen asleep and ended up at The Roadhouse with his friends. Perhaps he and Sam would visit him there. Or maybe they would find themselves back at the bunker again, curled up together on the same bed. Castiel would be happy with that too. In the meantime, he was in no hurry for Sam to awaken. His human deserved the rest he got.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you cry no more.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't you cry no more.


End file.
